Early Modern English Period

• Early Modern English (EModE) spans roughly from 1476-1755, generally from 1500-1750.

Major Historical Developments

• Printing Press
• The English Renaissance
• The Protestant Reformation
• Rising Nationalism
• Exploration and Colonization

Printing Press

• 1476 William Caxton brought and established the first printing press.
• It was set up in the City of Westminster.
• It began freezing/fixing English spelling, which ensured standardization.
• Caxton complained about the variability of English.
• Ongoing internal language change and dialect leveling took place.
• Most preserved texts are not easily localizable.
• Spelling became easier to standardize than other areas.
• An "e" was sometimes added to the end of words to meet the margin.

English Renaissance

• This time saw a revival of interest in classical learning as a result of English.
• Translations of Plato, Ovid, and Homer were common.
• Writers began to compare English with Latin due to familiarity with classical models.

Protestant Reformation

• Henry VIII broke with Rome, leading to a new understanding of the church.
• This era had various translations of the bible, for example:
  • Wycliff 1395
  • Tyndale 1526
  • King James Bible 1611

Rising Nationalism

• A New English identity was formed because England had been always invaded by different countries.
• Elizabeth's long reign fostered pride in the English language.
• A conscious desire to produce a national literature in English developed, like Spencer's "Faerie Queene" (1590).

Exploration and Colonization

• At the beginning of the EModE period, England only had one overseas possession. (lost in 1558)
• 1588 Defeat of Spanish Armada allowed for major sea power and spread of English.

Language Data: Sourcing and Evaluation

• EModE provides a wealth of texts due to:
  • Printing press.
  • Rise of literacy.
    • 1500: men 10%, women 1%.
    • 1640: 30% of population.
• Evidence comes from all stages of the EModE period.
• Earlier texts differ more from present-day English (PdE) than later texts.
• Variety of text types provided evidence of different aspects:
  • religious (40%)
  • literary (25%)
• Other types include medical, legal, grammars, dictionaries, schoolbooks, personal letters, diaries, trial records, court proceedings, newspapers (London Gazette 1665), and scientific journals.
• Texts from one source are not reliable as the author may have made the same mistake, which is then possibly seen as something normal / a rule.

Limitations

• Texts could be modified and corrected.
• Manuscripts were printed, thereby standardized.
• Most private documents were not modified (but still possible).
• No access to spoken language
  • Registers were closer to spoken language.
  • includes dialogues and court records.
  • These remained conventionalized.
  • Originality is doubtful, like plays possibly being corrected/modified by actors.

Grammarians in EModE

• 16th c.: 4 known grammarians
• 17th c.: 32 grammarians
• 18th c.: ~200 grammarians
• Grammarians followed the tradition of comparing English to Latin, trying to fit established terms.
  • Latin is highly inflected, but EModE becoming less so, resulting in categories overlooked or made up to make it fit.
• Prescriptive account/approach, not necessarily reflecting actual language use, creating an abstract idea based on Latin grammar.

Standardization Characteristics

• EModE was relatively homogenous
• Spelling became more fixed.
• Literacy wasn't widespread, so only high class/educated people could write and read.
• Minor linguistic variation remained.
• EModE became more standardized and closer to PdE than Middle English (ME) or Old English (OE).
• There wasn't a standard version.

Varieties in EModE

• Varieties with regard to:
  • Region
  • Social group
  • Field of discourse
  • Context of situation
• Differences between spoken and written language with naturally less evidence.
• Surprising amount of evidence for dialectical usage.
• Still much of it unexamined by scholars.
• Variety of local dialects that differed from region to region.
• Dialects associated with uneducated and incorrect usage

Dialects in EModE

• England, some parts of Scotland, Wales and Ireland: English.
• West and north England: Celtic languages.
• Scotland:
  • Official language: Scots.
  • Highlands: Gaelic-speaking.
  • Lowlands: Scots-speaking.
• Sutherland, Orkney and Shetland: from Scandinavian Norn to Scots.
• Ireland: Celtic-speaking.

Investigating Dialects

• Dialect texts, including diary entries/letters and literary texts.
• Contemporary comments on dialects by those who had an attitude of the periods.
• Diachronic reconstructions based on recorded Middle English/EModE dialects.

Principal Dialects

• The General
• The Northern
• The Southern
• The Eastern
• The Western
• The Poetic
• The basis for most was pronunciation
• Initial fricative voicing, zing versus sing
• Final /l/ sound, vill versus fill (Southern)
• Morphological features include gang vs. go (Northern).
• There were dialects of country people. Dialects of people of genteel and cultured upbringing:
  • They had one universal speech, both in pronunciation and meaning”.
  • However, still its pronunciation was sometimes ambiguous.

Standardization Steps

• Selection of a dialect as the dominant variety, either by the government, the majority of the people, or some kind of institution.
• Acceptance of the selected dialect by educated and powerful classes.
• Elaboration of selected dialect's functions, spreading usage not only in legal documents but also in other parts of life.
• Codification of selected dialect, fixing it in dictionaries and grammars.
• Standards are usually a “compromise dialect, widely intelligible and incorporating linguistic elements from other areas".

Chancery English

• People working in Court of Chancery had already independently developed their own standardized English.
• English replaced French in early 15th century in documents issued by King's office.
• It was written by clerks who had little training in their mother tongue (but Latin/French).
• There was massive dialectal variation in English.
• Later only little form variation existed.
• Southern usage was the blueprint for Chancery standard.
• Westminster writings served as a reference standard.

Features of EModE Spelling

• Existence of more than one spelling of the same word.
  • e.g. fellow, felow, felowe, fallow, fallowe
• and were used as both vowel and consonant graphemes, with being used medially and in initial position.
  • e.g. vpon; haue; loues Interchangeability of and (front high vowels) in medial position.
  • e.g. certaynly, varyeth, recieve, receyve Interchangeability of , and in final position in which the becomes standard towards period's end.
  • e.g. necessitie, certainly
• Final - is mainly to indicate length. - e.g. made, ride, hope, kepe - also adjust right of hand margins printing press. - e.g. southe
  • differentiate with inflectional –s from word's final /-s/.
    • e.g. dense (sg.) vs. dens (pl. of den)
  • prevent , , and from occurring in final position.
• Double vowels , also indicated length.
  • e.g. fornoon, doo
• Word-initial was used for /δʒ/ until mid-17th century, and around 1630 replaced by .
  • e.g. ioyned, iudgemente Apostrophes indicated missing vowels (16th c.), with erratic use. Also indicates syncope in preterits and past participles of weak verbs.
  • e.g. talk'd Apostrophe in genitive singular was introduced during 17th c., in plural in the 18th.
• Introduction of several French digraphs: , (in 15th c.) to mark for long open vowels.
• Also for /i:/or/e:/.
• Use of capital letters especially after Civil War (1660), rapid decline in mid-18th c.
• Etymological and analogical spellings were common, especially affecting french loanwords to conform with alleged.